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Doctor Who (1963-1969 Episodes)
Although the subject is often debated, the ongoing recovery of lost Doctor Who episodes is often considered to be the most extensive and dedicated lost/found media search in history. For those who do not know, Doctor Who is a classic British Sci-Fi series that has been running since 1963 (though it was cancelled in 1989, it was revived in 2005). However, The BBC's policy on wiping master tapes of their television shows did not save this series. Although all episodes from the Third Doctor onwards survive in some form, the First and Second Doctor eras are still missing, in total, 97 episodes. This is all from the first six years. However, it must be said that it could've easily been much worse, as the first six years of the show had 253 episodes produced. Please note that, while the Third Doctor era had some episodes wiped as well, along with their own missing episodes (most noteably Planet of the Daleks 1 and Invasion of Dinosaurs 1), this article will only be covering the first six years of the show for convience sake. What Has Been Recovered And When 1978-The BBC ends the junking of their television series and sets up The Film and Video Tape Library to preserve these series for the indefinate future. One of the main focuses of the Library was Doctor Who, and in an early audit Archive Selector Sue Malden found that The BBC had 47 episodes still in their archives despite the wiping. They are as follows: -An Unearthy Child (4 episodes out of 4, COMPLETE STORY) -The Keys of Marinus (1 episode out of 6, episode 5) -The Romans (2 episodes out of 4, episodes 1 and 3) -The Web Planet (1 episode out of 6, episode 2) -The Crusade (1 episode out of 4, episode 3) -The Space Museum (1 episode out of 4, episode 3) -The Time Meddler (1 episode out of 4, episode 2) -The Ark (1 episode out of 4, episode 3) -The Gunfighters (1 episode out of 4, episode 4) -The Tenth Planet (3 episodes out of 4, episodes 1-3) -The Underwater Menace (1 episode out of 4, episode 3) -The Moonbase (2 episodes out of 4, episodes 2 and 4) -The Faceless Ones (1 episode out of 6, episode 1) -The Enemy of the World (1 episode out of 6, epiosde 3) -The Dominators (4 episodes out of 5, Episodes 1-2 and 4-5, epiosdes 4 and 5 found to be edited) -The Invasion (6 episodes out of 8, episodes 2-3 and 5-8) -The Krotons (2 episodes out of 4, episodes 2-3) -The Seeds of Death (4 episodes out of 6, episodes 1-2, 4, and 6) -The War Games (4 episodes out of 10, episodes 2, 5, 8, and 9) Also found during the audit were 7 episodes on 35mm film, making them of higher quality than any other episode recovered and bringing the missing episode count down to 199. They were as follows: -The Dalek Invasion of the Earth (1 episode out of 6, episode 5) -The Wheel in Space (1 episode out of 6, episode 6) -The Dominators (5 episode out of 5, episode 3 on 35mm film, episodes 4-5 slightly edited, STORY COMPLETE) -The Mind Robber (1 episode out of 5, episode 5) -The Krotons (3 episodes out of 4, episodes 1-3, episode 1 on 35mm film) -The Seeds of Death (5 episodes out of 6, episodes 1-2 and 4-6, episode 5 on 35mm film) -The Space Pirates (1 episode out of 6, episode 2) Several months after the first audit, music producer and long time Doctor Who fan Ian Levine approached Sue Malden about purchasing a few episodes for his collection. When he found out how many episodes survived, Ian was extremely dissapointed. He soon heard a rumour that more episodes existed in the Villers House Film Vault in London, which kept all the film they sold overseas stored. Ian soon organized a trip to the Villers House, and found that it held a jaw dropping 79 episodes from Doctor Who's first six years, most of which were not in the archives. The missing episodes recovered are as follows: -The Daleks (7 out of 7 episodes, STORY COMPLETE) -The Edge of Destruction (2 out of 2 episodes, STORY COMPLETE) -The Keys of Marinus (6 out of 6 episodes, STORY COMPLETE) -The Aztecs (4 episodes out of 4, STORY COMPLETE) -The Sensorites (6 episodes out of 6, STORY COMPLETE) -Planet of Giants (3 episodes out of 3, STORY COMPLETE) -The Dalek Invasion of the Earth (6 episodes out of 6, STORY COMPLETE) -The Rescue (2 episodes out of 2, STORY COMPLETE) -The Romans (4 episodes out of 4, STORY COMPLETE) -The Web Planet (6 episodes out of 6, STORY COMPLETE) -The Space Museum (4 episodes out of 4, STORY COMPLETE) -The Chase (6 episodes out of 6, STORY COMPLETE) -The Ark (4 episodes out of 4, STORY COMPLETE) -The Gunfighters (4 episodes out of 4, STORY COMPLETE) -The Mind Robber (5 episodes out of 5, STORY COMPLETE) -The Seeds of Death (6 episodes out of 6, STORY COMPLETE) Of the 79 episodes recovered, 62 of them did not exist in the BBC archives, slicing the number of missing numbers from 199 to 167. It is believed many if not all of these episodes would have been thrown out that same day had Ian Levine not intervened, and it stands as the largest recovery of lost Doctor Who episodes to this day. In the same year, The BBC contacted The British Film Institues, or the BFI for short, to see if they had any Doctor Who episodes in their possession. The BFI returned 3 full Second Doctor stories, and though one of them (The Dominators) was already completely in the archives, the other two stories had episodes missing, and brought the count of missing episodes to an even 160. They were as follows: -The Krotons (4 out of 4 episodes, STORY COMPLETE) -The War Games (10 out of 10 episodes, STORY COMPLETE) Two more missing episodes were recovered in 1978-1 episode of 6 of The Web of Fear (episode 1, found in a stack of films returned from Hong Kong or Australia), and 1 episode of 4 of The War Machines (episode 2, in the possession of an Australian film collector, who returned his print after negotiations were made). At the end of 1978, 136 episodes from the first 6 years of Doctor Who were strill missing. 1982 Two more missing episodes were found this year, one from a batch of seven episodes bought by then BBC employee Roger Stevens, the other found being sold at a film fair and recovered with the help of Ian Levine. The episode from the Stevens batch was 1 episode of The Abominable Snowmen (episode 2) and 1 episode of The Reign of Terror (episode 6). Also of not from the Stevens batch were superior copies of episode 1 of The Space Museum and episode 4 of The Moonbase. At the end of 1982, 134 episodes were missing. 1983 Three more episodes were found in the following year, one from the Second Doctor era and two from the First Doctor era. For the Second Doctor, fan David Stead found and bought a copy of episode 3 of The Wheel in Space (which now had 2 episodes found, episodes 3 and 6) for 15 pounds, though various issues prevented Stead from returning the episode until April of next year. For the First Doctor, two episodes of the serial The Dalek Master Plan (episodes 5 and 10 out of 12) were found in a Mormon parish building previously occupied by The BBC, an espescially remarkable recovery seeing as Master Plan was only ever sold to 1 country (Australia) whereas other stories were sold to as many as 19 countries. This left 130 episodes lost at the end of 1983. 1984 Seven more episodes were recovered this year, all from the First Doctor era. First, a routine inspection of Australian television broadcaster The ABC's film archives revealed they had an episode of The Celestial Toymaker (episode 4 out of 4) in their possession, despite the fact that the entire serial was supposed to have been junked by them years ago. Though slightly edited, it was returned to The BBC soon after. Ian Levine once again found Doctor Who episodes, this time 6 from Nigeria, completing 2 stories that previously only had one episode to their names (The Time Meddler and The War Machines). This left 123 episodes still missing at the end of 1984. 1985 Three more episodes were recovered this year, all from the same story-The First Doctor story The Reign of Terror, which previously only had episode 6 in the archives, had episodes 1-3 returned to it from Cyprus by future restoration team member Paul Vanezis. It is thought that episodes 4 and 5 were also in Cyprus, but there were destroyed in the nation's civil war in 1974. 120 episodes were still missing at the end of 1985. 1987 After 1986 went by without any recoveries, two episodes were recoverd from film collector Gordon Hendrie and his associate Saied Marham. The films were first bought at a film fair in 1982 by Hendrie, though he had no idea the signifigance of the episodes at the time. After Marham tried to coax cons and theaters to screen the films in exchange for a profit, they were branded as a hoax and the films went into hiding. At TellyCon that year, a tribute was held for Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton, who died earlier that year. Marham and Hendrie offered one of their episodes, The Faceless Ones 3, for screening at the convention. After said screening, the duo obtained many episodes from Ian Levine so he could make copies of both The Faceless Ones 3 (which put episodes 1 and 3 out of 6 in the archives) and The Evil of the Daleks 2 (1 episode out of 7) for his archives, and Hendrie gave his prints of the episodes to The BBC so they could also make copies. This left 118 episodes lost at the end of 1987. 1988 Four episodes from The Second Doctor era were found while cleaning out the Villers House in London, the same place where Ian Levine found 62 episodes not in the archives at that point ten years prior. The four episodes all came from a serial which had no episodes in the archives at that point, The Ice Warriors (episodes 1 and 4-6). Of note was the fact that the film canister that contained episode 1 was mislabled as episode 2, and an empty film can labeled Fury of the Deep episode 6 was also found, but sadly empty. That left 114 episodes still to find. 1991 After two and a half years of no episodes being found,all four episodes of the completely missing Second Doctor story, The Tomb of the Cybermen, was returned from Hong Kong. For over 20 years, this was the only Second Doctor story from his first seasons that was complete. The discovery left 110 episodes still missing from the archives. 1999 Eight years after Tomb of the Cybermen's recovery, many people thought another Doctor Who episode getting recovered was an impossibility. Then an incredible discovery came out of New Zealand-film collector Bruce Grenville had purchased a copy of episode 1 of The Crusade (which only had episode 3 in the archives) in mid 1988 at a film fair in Napier. Grenville kept the episode for eleven years, hoping to find the other episodes in the series so he could have a complete story, not knowing that the serial was mostly lost. Oddly enought, Grenville had the episodes listed on his website for years, yet no one picked up on it until Cornelius Stone requested the episode screened for him. After some negotiating with Bruce, Stone convinced him to give his episode to The BBC so they could make a copy for themselves. It was a highly publicized event, and likely refuelled the drive to find not just more Doctor Who episodes but more missing television shows in general. 109 episodes were still yet to be found going into the New Millenium. 2004 Once again after a long hiatus from episodes being found, an episode from The First Doctor era was recovered from Francis Watson. Watson was a former head of Engineering at Yorkshire Television in Leeds, one of The BBC's primary rivals during it's heyday. On the day it was supposed to be junked, Watson saved a copy of The Dalek Master Plan episode 2 (meaning the ultra rare serial now had 3 episodes of 12 in the archives) and held onto it for 30 years before returning it. That left 108 episodes still lost. 2011 Seven years later, two more episodes were finally found and returned to the archives. This time they came from film collector Terry Burnett. In the 1980s, Burnett pruchased a box of unlabled film cans at a school fete, and among the films in the box were an episode of Galaxy 4 (episode 3 of 4) and an episode of The Underwater Menace (episode 2 of 4, episode 3 of which was already in the archives). Terry had no idea the episodes were missing until a chance meeting with Ralph Montagu, Head of Heritage for the Radio Times, where he brought up the episodes casually in a conversation. Though both were damaged, The BBC gladly took the episodes in for copying, leaving 106 episodes still lost at the end of the year. 2013 For the 50th anniversery of Doctor Who, fans were in for a treat-9 previously lost episodes were recovered, the largest recovery of lost Doctor Who episodes since Ian Levine's amazing discovery in 1978, all from Nigeria. Phil Morris, director of the TIEA, recovered the episodes one year prior, but kept their existence a secret until October 2013 so restoration work could be complete for them. The episodes included all five missing episodes of The Enemy of the World, making the story complete, and four of the five missing episodes from The Web of Fear (episode 3 still missing). It also put fuel on the fire that Morris also found atleast part of Marco Polo in Nigeria as well, though no confirmation has come through yet. The missing episode count was finally brought down from triple digits to double digits, leaving 97 yet to be found. Near Misses There have been a handful of occasions where, for one reason or another, episodes come irritatingly close to being found, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. This is a list of what examples I could find. -As stated above, a film canister labelled Fury of the Deep 6 was found in the same Villers House cleanout that produced four episodes of The Ice Warriros, but was found to be empty. The film canister containing episode 1 of The Ice Warriors was also mislabelled, saying it contained The Ice Warriros 2. -In late 1996, Australian fan Damian Shanahan was researching the ABC in Australian, when he discovered two film canisters labelled Marco Polo 7 and The Moonbase 3, both episodes currently not in the archives. Sadly, both film cans were empty. -The last episodes that had the master tapes wiped at The BBC were all six episodes of The Fury of the Deep. Currently, none of the episodes from that series are in the archives. -In an odd inversion of a near miss, in early 2014 Ian Levine found 10 episodes in Taiwan, all held by a man named Keith Perron and all already held by The BBC. Among the 10 episodes was a copy of The Enemy of the World 6, which was only found four months prior. For reference, the other nine episodes were 2 episodes of The Dominators, 2 episodes of The War Games, 1 episode of The Seeds of Death, 2 episodes of The Ambassadors of Death, 1 episode of The Keys of Marinus, and 1 episode of The Krotons. With the exception of Enemy of the World, all episodes found existed in the archives pre 1980s. The search for lost Doctor Who episodes still goes on to this day, but it is highly unlikely the series will ever be complete. Besides one episode never being telerecorded for overseas sales (The Dalek Master Plan 7, a christmas episode that The BBC saw no oversea sales value in), the films these episodes are stored on are only deteriorating year after year as they continue to sit in private collections or television station vaults unfound. It is highly likely that more episodes will be found in the future however (I mean come on, Marco Polo was distributed to 18 countires, atleast one episode is gonna turn up eventually) (For those who want to learn more about lost Doctor Who episodes, check out this blog. http://missingepisodes.blogspot.com/ )